News: State & West News

Colorado mountain towns readying for recreational tokers

Telluride's Colorado Avenue could have pot sales next year. (Ben Knight, Special to The Denver Post)

They won't have to "hide it up in Telluride" anymore.

Glenn Frey sang that famous line in his 1984 "Smuggler's Blues" ode to drug dealing. But at the first of the year, those looking to add reefer to their ski-town recreation experience will be able to stroll into Colorado Avenue stores and legally buy some Bubba Kush or Maui Waui.

Colorado's live-and-let-live mountain resort towns, including Telluride, Aspen, Crested Butte, Breckenridge and Steamboat Springs, are jumping on the opportunities opened up by Amendment 64 and are ready to add recreational marijuana outlets to the ski-town attractions of moguls and double-blacks.

With local ordinances already approved or in the final stages of tweaking, recreational pot shops will be operating in these towns at the first of the year, just in time for the influx of fun-seeking skiers.

Drawing a line

"I can tell you I already get tourists asking me 'Where can I buy my legal marijuana?' " said Telluride Town Attorney Kevin Geiger.

Telluride is close to approving retail shops in the downtown core, but like other mountain towns, including Aspen, is planning to draw the line at allowing what some are calling "smoking dens."

The consumption or display of pot products on city-owned properties is also not OK in Telluride under the new ordinance. That prohibition includes the Telluride Town Park, where clouds of reefer smoke have been known to waft over festival revelers for decades.

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Telluride drew another line at a request to add a cannabis festival to its lengthy list of annual festivals that celebrate everything from movies to mushrooms. Geiger said that was going just a little too far, even in a liberal bastion where 80 percent of the voters approved of the amendment that legalized recreational marijuana in Colorado.

That amendment, which effectively regulates cannabis similar to alcohol, passed in November 2012 with the approval of 55 percent of Colorado voters. The approval was up in the 70 percent to 90 percent range in most ski resort towns.

The amendment gave local governments the ability to prohibit or regulate marijuana shops as they see fit. That means that even though marijuana dispensaries are going to be allowed in the majority of ski-resort towns, the rules will be a bit of a Cheech-and-Chongish hodgepodge that could have some visitors to Colorado scratching their heads over where and how to buy bud.

The differing rules that many mountain-town officials think will be smoothed out and made more uniform over time could be likened, for the time being, to Utah's convoluted liquor laws.

"It is going to be a little confusing in the beginning," admitted Brian Vicente, one of the authors of Amendment 64. "But we wrote the amendment to let local communities decide. It is completely fascinating how they are doing that."

While Telluride is welcoming dispensaries in its downtown core, Breckenridge, which was once called "the Amsterdam of the Rockies" for decriminalizing pot before the rest of the state, wants to keep dispensaries out of its downtown core. The one shop that has operated there for several years is going to have to move to a new, less central location at the end of next year under the newly adopted regulations.

Vail bides time

In Crested Butte, where 88 percent of the voters checked "yes" on Amendment 64, pot shops will not be a town-sanctioned part of the colorful Elk Avenue scene. An unlimited number will be allowed in other parts of downtown, where three medical-marijuana dispensaries already are located.

"We didn't want to create a sense of tucking it away or hiding it," said Crested Butte Town Council member Shaun Matusewicz. "We are implementing the will of the people."

Not to confuse matters, but Mount Crested Butte, just a 3-mile shuttle hop up the hill from Crested Butte and home to the Crested Butte Mountain Resort ski area, has decided to prohibit pot shops.

Then there is Vail. The most visible ski town in Colorado has not allowed medical marijuana to be dispensed there and has extended a ban on recreational marijuana outlets through the end of the year.

Tammy Nagel, acting Vail town clerk, said Vail can take its time because it hasn't had any applications from marijuana providers. It can have the luxury of seeing how pot shops play out in other towns.

"There is certainly going to be an adjustment period," said Kevin Bommer, deputy director of the Colorado Municipal League and one of those advising towns on how to handle the regulatory reefer madness. "Right now, it's unpredictable."

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